Daily Archives: August 7, 2014

People power: Commuters helped free a man who got his leg stuck between a train and a platform. Picture: Renae Bryant

FOOTAGE of passengers pushing against a Perth train carriage to free a trapped commuter has made headlines around the world.

News reports in the US, Europe and India have all shared footage of the rescue which saw dozens of passengers help out a fellow train user who fell into the gap between the train and the station platform.

The Public Transport Authority shared the video of the rescue yesterday after the commuter’s leg got stuck at Stirling Station about 8.50am causing a delay for the city-bound train.

Since then the footage has been viewed more than 80,000 times on PerthNow.

Nicolas Taylor said he and fellow passengers got off the train and worked together to free the man by pushing against the carriage away from the platform.

The train moved on its suspension enough for the man to get out from the sticky situation.

“He was walking so he was reasonably OK,” Mr Taylor said.

“He seemed to be a bit sheepish, because right where he fell was the ‘mind the gap’ writing.”

Mr Taylor said Transperth staff coordinated the incident well with it only taking about 10 minutes.

“They did a really good job, they took control and handled it well,” he said.

“When I first saw it I thought we’d be there for hours.”

People push a train to free a stuck commuter at Stirling station. Picture: PTA

Transperth spokesman David Hynes said station staff alerted the driver so the train did not leave the station.

“Our staff were within metres of the man when it happened and immediately went to his assistance,” he said.

“After ensuring that the train would remain stationary they organised for passengers to alight and coordinated their efforts to tilt the train carriage away from the platform so that the man could be rescued.

“The man was freed safely and we handed him over to emergency services. We understand he was not badly injured because he stayed at the station and boarded a later train to the city.

“Despite the station meeting the latest accessibility standards in terms of the gap between platform and train, somehow his leg managed to slip in between.”

Mr Hynes also thanked the passengers involved in the rescue.

“We hear a lot about poor behaviour on public transport,” he said.

“It’s really great when something like this happens and people work together to help a fellow commuter.”

source: perthnow.com.au

From Greece as a destination, to how Greek Australian writers meld their cultures, the festival will include a Greek Australian writers session.

Greek Australian writers will talk Greece and writing when they take to the stage of this year’s annual Bendigo Writers Festival, from 8 to 10 August.

This year’s annual three day festival for readers and writers is set to light up Bendigo’s View Street with a packed program, celebrating the brilliant careers of some of the most admired and controversial writers in Australia.

On opening night, Blanche d’Alpuget, novelist and biographer of Bob Hawke, will talk about the influence of power.

On Saturday evening, the festival will showcase the unique voice of Australia’s unofficial poet laureate, Les Murray, whose vision of Australia has travelled to all corners of the world.

The festival will also include a Greek writers session (Saturday, 9 August, 12.30 pm) talking about ‘The Idea of Greece’. John Charalambous, Helen Nickas and Victoria Kyriakopoulos will talk subjects from Greece as a destination, to how Greek Australian writers meld their cultures, to the anxiety of the ‘phoney’ Greeks.

A Greek theme session will link the audience to ‘The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greece’, the exhibition from the British Museum currently on display at the Bendigo Art Gallery.

Romance author Jess Anastasi will host editorial coordinator Alaina Gougoulis, editor Lyn White, critic James Ley and publicist Alan Davidson in an interactive session about what makes a book publishable.

The festival will also be about living well, with the important and delectable ideas of diet researcher Catherine Itsiopoulos on the menu, discussed in the talk ‘The Good Oil’ about why eating Greek is best both for health and taste (Sunday 10 August, 1.00 pm).

The Bendigo Writers Festival takes place in the heart of Bendigo’s View Street arts precinct, at the venues The Capital, the Old Fire Station, Dudley House and La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre (VAC).

For more information and tickets, visit bendigowritersfestival.com.au or contact The Capital box office 5434 6100.

source: Neos Kosmos

Peter and Tony Giannakis, owners of The Graham Hotel in Port Melbourne.

Bespoke Port Melbourne dining experience The Graham Hotel has taken out the 2014 Victoria Metropolitan Restaurant Award for ‘Best restaurant in a pub, club and tavern’ category.

Given by Restaurant and Catering Australia – the national association representing 35,000 catering businesses across Australia – the award comes as the business run by Peter and Tony Giannakis has expanded, with two new dining areas added to the classy, crisp feel of the original dining room.

While The Graham has been a popular fixture on the Melbourne gastropub scene for more than a decade, this latest award suggests its ascent as a fine dining experience is set to continue.

Peter Giannakis told Neos Kosmos that the award reflected The Graham’s intention to “raise the bar” for a restaurant already recognised as a top performer.

“It’s something we keep striving for,” says Giannakis, who opened The Graham with brother Tony 13 years ago.

“Dining has become so sophisticated in Melbourne, and between our kitchen team and our front of house team, we’ve been making small changes to the style of service, the structure of the menu, and even aesthetic changes to the building, all to present the product better.”

Following recent refurbishment of the historic 1870s building which houses The Graham, the restaurant broke its record for the number of covers in an evening, with over 100 meals being served.

“We’ve created a different dynamic here now,” says Giannakis. “We can accommodate more people, so it’s a bigger beast to manage”.

Increasing business has also meant three extra staff jobs have been created – one in the kitchen and two to maintain The Graham’s silky-smooth customer service in the larger but no less intimate environment.

The Graham’s Restaurant and Catering Australia award comes a month before the prestigious Good Food Guide Awards run by The Age, which bestows Chef’s Hats as the ultimate commercial dining accolade in Victoria.

“Last time we missed out on a Chef’s Hat by half a point,” says Giannakis, “so this is timely for us.”

In winning the RCA award, The Graham Hotel beat fellow finalists including The Grand Dining Room in Richmond, which has held on to a coveted Chef’s Hat for the past four years.

source: Neos Kosmos

George Calombaris’ Made Establishment is in a push to reduce debt.

The Made Establishment, that owns many of chef George Calombaris’ restaurants, is selling off and closing many of its restaurants to minimise debts.

Mounting debts and the closure of a string of restaurants has restaurateur and chef George Calombaris desperate to balance the books.

The Masterchef star’s restaurant group, Made Establishment is selling off the East Brunswick Hellenic Republic, and has closed Le Grand Cirque, Calombaris’ new venture with My Kitchen Rules chef Manu Feidel.

The restaurant was plagued by poor reviews and lack of patronage, that eventually had the group fall on their swords.

The Italian-Greek fusion restaurant Mama Baba also fell on hard times and closed within two years.

The building that houses Hellenic Republic in Brunswick is set to go under the hammer this month with an asking price of $1.9 million, but the restaurant will still continue to function as the group extended the lease for another 10 years.

St Katherine’s was also sold off in 2012 for $4.31 million and reopened as another Hellenic Republic.

The Group also closed and rebranded The Press Club restaurant, and turned it into a more informal dining area called Gazi, while keeping a much smaller area for fine dining to make it more financially viable and cater to different tastes.

‘‘There’s only so much debt a business can afford to carry. But we’ve also bought three locations for new restaurants too,’’ Calombaris said to The Sunday Age.

The Made Establishments business model was highly reliant on borrowing heavily to buy properties to house restaurants, spending thousands to renovate and expecting high returns.

For the first five restaurants the group bought, it spent $8.9 million.

The Group is now looking to overhaul its business model and minimise its debts buy quickly selling off businesses flat-lining and investing in more casual eateries.

The new venture, souvlaki eatery Jimmy Grants has been a shining light for the Group, with two restaurants opening, and more on the pipeline.

The group says the days when couples would spend $300 on dinner were gone and the company had to adjust accordingly.

The Made Establishment is jointly owned by George Calombaris, restaurant heavyweight George Skyiotis and steel industry businessmen Joe Calleja and Tony Lachimea.

Source: The Sunday Age

Melbourne raised missionary Father Themi Adams.

Greek Australian Themi Adams prepares to tackle the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone.

A former Australian rock-star atheist, who found Christ and became a fearless missionary to war-torn Sierra Leone, West Africa, is now preparing for what could be the great challenge of his life.

He is Fr Themi Adams, who was once a member of The Flies, that once shared the stage with The Rolling Stones and The Beatles, and now runs The Holy Orthodox Mission in Freetown, the capital city of the troubled West African nation. Father Adams is making urgent preparations to help possible victims of the deadly Ebola virus if and when it spreads to Sierra Leone.

Since February, more than 660 people have died of Ebola in West Africa – the world’s deadliest outbreak to date.
According to the BBC, it began in southern Guinea and spread to Liberia and could soon hit Sierra Leone. The virus kills up to 90 per cent of those infected but if patients receive early treatment, they have a better chance of survival. It spreads through contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids.

In a message to supporters, Fr Themi, who was born in Egypt to Greek parents and raised in Melbourne, Australia, where he began his rocking career, described what has been going on.

He said: “The present West African epicentre of this non-curable killer infection is in Guinea (Sierra Leone’s northern and eastern border neighbour). Now it has started to spread beyond the Guinean borders. It is interesting that Ebola has never been previously recorded in Guinea. Precisely because it is an unprecedented phenomenon, some local Guineans recently attacked members of the French medical organisation, Doctors Without Borders, believing that they had deliberately introduced the virus into Guinea as part of a ‘foreign plot’.

“The Guinean government appealed for calm [recently], after a mob attacked a centre where Ebola virus victims were being treated. The attack took place in the southern town of Macenta, at a centre run by Doctors Without Borders.

“Now we face this new deadly menace and preventive measures in our Orthodox Mission in Sierra Leone have begun as we endeavour to protect our people.”

He went on to say that their mission in Sierra Leone is now on an “emergency alert footing”, adding “we are monitoring the spread of Ebola in Sierra Leone and taking various forms of preventative environmental, hygienic and spiritual measures to protect the people we serve here”.

Fr Themi said that included daily prayer at the mission for protection against the deadly virus.

He said it also included “preventative hygiene education”, stating “our mission possesses three large compounds in the Greater Freetown area serving over 2,000 children, youth and adults throughout our various educational, ecclesiastical and medical projects”.

“We have an obligation to keep them safe from this deadly infection which has no known cure or therapy. In this case prevention from infection is the best and perhaps only possible policy.

“Consequently we are providing a constant information outreach, discussions and updates to our pupils, parents and teachers, college students, lecturers, priests, parishioners and staff, concerning the nature of the infection and how to safeguard oneself from contamination. We have even enrolled the services of the Red Cross to assist us in this educational and preventative effort.”

This, said Fr Themi, also included appropriate personal hygiene (washing of hands, washing clothes, boiling water, washing food before cooking etc.).

“We are ensuring that all our buildings are cleaned and disinfected; especially the toilet and washroom facilities,” he stated.

“Furthermore we are discouraging any travel to Guinea or Liberia for the time being. I would also advise that all overseas visitors planning to visit our mission in Sierra Leone to cancel or postpone their trip until the danger period has safely passed.

“In case this killer infection reaches Freetown, of all our compounds perhaps the most potentially vulnerable is the Waterloo compound (at the outskirts of Freetown). Here we house a community of physically challenged people (mostly polio and amputee victims) together with their children and spouses – the St Moses the Ethiopian Orthodox Village.

“At this point of time we have no complete perimeter wall around the disabled housing area. That means that the community is exposed to all types of threats from the surrounding and neighbouring communities. For example, it is not unusual for individuals from the surrounding vicinity to trespass at night and without permission use the St Moses Community toilet facilities (as well as at times harass and steal). That means that if the Ebola infection reaches Freetown this compound is at great risk of exposure to contamination.

“Furthermore, while we are providing free accommodation, free medical services, free educational opportunities as well as financial assistance to the members of the St Moses Community, nevertheless at the present time due to financial constraints the washing and bathing facilities are very primitive. This is another point of weakness in our compound which could attract the Ebola virus.”

Fr Themi said he is requesting help for “ensuring emergency messages be implemented at our Waterloo Compound in order to provide a safe and hygienic environment for our Orthodox community living there”.

He added that they need to provide the following:

“We need to build a complete perimeter wall to protect our Waterloo disabled community from outsiders using the existing toilet facilities and hence potentially infecting the compound. Construction on this wall has already started but it needs to be completed.

“To ensure optimal hygiene levels we need to provide decent washing facilities for our disabled brothers and sisters. This will consist of separate male and female compartments for personal bathing and for washing of clothes.

“Finally, if we are to ensure safe and hygienic washing facilities we will need to build a permanent water well, pump and an adjacent tower holding a sizeable water tank. The water well would have to be deep enough in order to have the capacity of supplying water all year round. Water would then be pumped up from the well to the elevated water tank which would permanently supply its water through taps and showers into the washroom. Naturally we will ensure a constant supply of soap and washing powder.

“God has so far protected and blessed the people of Sierra Leone. There have been many cases of Ebola in Guinea and in Liberia but not here.

“Their belief in God, assisted by the new Minister of Health, Miatta Kargbo, a woman who has tirelessly worked with the World Health Organisation to ensure effective sanctions against the spread of Ebola in Sierra Leone, is one reason why they believe the virus has not spread here,” he said.

source: Neos Kosmos

Prime Minister Tony Abbott will join other national leaders at a memorial service in Melbourne today, to remember the 38 Australians among the 298 victims.

Mr Abbott said flags would be lowered around Australia, while more than 500 staff continue working overseas as part of Operation Bring Them Home.

“Today is a day of mourning, and we will remember the 298 innocent people who died on Flight MH17,” he said.

“We grieve for all of them, but particularly for the 38 who called Australia home.

“Today we will remember them and we will honour them.”

In Brisbane, St John’s Anglican Cathedral will ring its bells at noon and a candlelit vigil will be held at St George’s Anglican Cathedral, in Perth, from 5pm (WST).

Among the victims were the three children of Perth couple Rin and Anthony Maslin – Mo, Evie and Otis – who were remembered at a separate memorial service on Sunday.

More than 500 Australians are overseas working to investigate the crash site and repatriate the victims’ remains.

A joint team of Australia, Dutch and Malaysian officials are combing the site for bodies, personal items and other evidence.

The national memorial service will begin at 10.30am (AEST) on Thursday and will also be broadcast at Federation Square in Melbourne and at King George Square in Brisbane.

source: sbs.com.au

TONY Abbott has ruled out reviving the government’s shelved changes to race hate laws despite campaigners reigniting their push to remove the shackles on free speech.

Conservative think tank the Institute of Public Affairs emailed supporters saying the Prime Minister might have given up but “the fight to restore freedom of speech in Australia is not over’’.

Mr Abbott abandoned the proposed changes to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act after they proved deeply un­popular, especially in ethnic ­communities.

The government had proposed scrapping the protections making it unlawful to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate other people or groups of people because of their race, colour or national or ethnic origin and replace them with provisions making it unlawful to vilify or intimidate others on similar grounds.

Mr Abbott ditched the controversial changes on Tuesday while announcing plans to beef up Australia’s counter-terrorism powers to prevent a surge in domestic ­attacks from jihadists being “radicalised and militarised’’ in overseas conflicts.

He said any reworking of 18C was a needless complication to the government’s efforts to “crack down on the kind of incitement to terrorism which we are now seeing in our community’’.

Asked if the changes to race hate laws, which were an election pledge, had been permanently shelved, Mr Abbott said: “Look, it’s off the table. It’s off the table, it’s gone, it’s disappeared.

“Our intention is to work as ­effectively as we can with the communities of Australia to ensure that we take a ‘Team Australia’ ­approach to countering terrorism and to building our nation,’’ he told the ABC.

But Bill Shorten expressed concern that Mr Abbott had only “temporarily retreated from watering down protections against hate speech in this country’’.

The government copped a community backlash against the proposed changes, which were championed by Attorney-General George Brandis. His comment in March that people had a “right to be bigots’’ proved a lightning rod for opposition.

Asked if he had been rolled, Senator Brandis said: “Well, you know what this business is like: you win a few, you lose a few.”

He said the government’s agenda had been too cluttered, and Mr Abbott had made a leader’s call.

“I accept the Prime Minister’s view that the government needs to focus on a smaller number of core priorities and that was the reason for his decision,’’ Senator Brandis told Sky News.

The Opposition Leader said Mr Abbott needed “to come out and just say ‘no one has a right to be a racist in Australia, no one’s got the right to be a bigot’.’’

“I think the Abbott government’s just put the watering down of hate speech laws in the top drawer — it may be off the table — but it’s sitting there in the top drawer of the Liberal Party,’’ Mr Shorten said.

source: theaustralian.com

The search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has entered a new phase with the Australian government selecting a Dutch consulting firm to conduct a deep-water operation that could take up to a year to complete.

Two massive vessels equipped with deep-water vehicles and expert personnel will cross the southern Indian Ocean, Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said on Wednesday.

The vessels, which will set off in September, could cover more than 20,000 square miles. The search will cost an estimated $48 million, according to CNN, with Australia taking the lead and the Malaysian government covering an unspecified portion of the bill.

“I remain cautiously optimistic that we will locate the missing aircraft within the priority search area,” Truss said at a news conference. “This search will obviously be a challenging one. We would hope obviously to find the aircraft on the first day, but it could in fact take a year to search the entire area, and of course weather conditions will have an impact on what time will be required to complete the task.”

Friday marks the five-month anniversary of MH370′s mysterious disappearance with 239 passengers on board. The search for answers — and wreckage — has been extremely challenging, in part because so little is actually known about the ocean floor where the plane presumably crashed.

There are more accurate surveys of the surfaces of Mars and Venus than there are of that ocean floor — 250 times more accurate, actually, as The Wall Street Journal recently reported.

source: washingtonpost.com